Editor's note
Mr. Hu Jinkun's cultural essays are unique in the local literary scene. Jintan humanities and history are at your fingertips. The writing is calm and calm, and the language is philosophical and meditative, which is worth reading. Wenyi Jinsha will be systematically promoted, following Hu Lao's brushstrokes, looking for Jintan cultural factors, and absorbing the nourishment of local culture.
A street in front of the Yamen
The day before yesterday, I was interviewed by Jintanrong media reporters in Nanxinqiao.
Standing on the Jintan South New Bridge and looking west, a straight Ximen Street is very long.
Looking left and right, the two sides of the bridge are along Hexi Road, along Hexi Road from south to north, about two miles of road.
Along Hexi Road, a section in the south is called Xiaonanmen Street, and a section in the north is called Xianqian Street.
Write about the third street of the west of the bridge, and know the spring and autumn of half of the city.
These streets are named after the city, the city, and the yamen.
The county front street is named after the county government, and a street in front of the main gate of the county government is also.
Nanxin to the old Yamen, this street, north-south.
Jintan old yamen, a small seven-pin sesame official, judging from the picture, very magnificent, covering an area of 20 acres, more than 1,000 houses, a large number of administrative personnel, in addition to the county order, there are county officials, criminal masters, Qian Gu masters, prison wardens, prison guards, arresters, menzi, post writing, a team, at least dozens of people, more than 100 people.
The old yamen was built in the Song Dynasty, and was rebuilt in the third year of Yuan Dade Daru Huachi A Lao Wading, rebuilt in the second year of Shunzhi, and repaired again in the eleventh year of Kangxi.
The old yamen is the immovable cultural relics of the city, some are of the Ming Dynasty, some are of the Qing Dynasty, the old Yamen of Nanjing is in Baixia Road, the old Yamen of Suzhou is in Shuyuan Lane, the old Yamen of Danyang is in Ximen Street, they may still be there, but it is a pity that the Jintan Yamen, a war at the end of the Qing Dynasty, was destroyed and the pieces of armor do not exist.
Today here to say this old street, fried cold food, cold pot and cold stove also taste, I heard the older generation say, the county lord in the Jintan Yamen murdered like hemp, there are many cases tried in the lobby, but a murder case of the Zhou family in the West Sedan Lane is the most sensational, because a woman in the Zhou family is very beautiful, attracting bees and butterflies, and was raped and killed, 17 suspects were sentenced to death, this peach-colored case, 17 heads fell to the ground.
The official government did this kind of murder to show the public, which was called "red business trip", and the "red business trip" in the county front street, the people who came to see the news, old and young, were crowded.
The lord of Jintan County, killing people is powerful, in the Shunzhi period, there were more people sentenced to death than this time, not a peach-colored murder case, it was a political case, and the people who were tied to the execution ground from the county government were sixty-one, all of whom were talented and lifted. This is the Jintan Tonghai case, which is earth-shattering and listed as one of the three strange cases in the south of the Yangtze River.
The specific location of Jintan County Ya is on the west side of the original Hua Luogeng Middle School, with the Confucian Temple in the east, the Chuncaotang in the west, and the city wall in the back.
In 1911, when the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Manchu Dynasty, Xu Yangqiu returned to Jintan from Jinling University in Nanjing, actively participated in and organized a local study group, led a group of young people, occupied the county government, and expelled the last magistrate.
During the period of the Republic of China, the Yi people came back from studying in Japan in Zhupo, and saw that the old yamen was destroyed and the ruins were rubble, so they cleaned it up and transformed it into a public stadium, which was a civilized move, and later it was the playground of Hua Luogeng Middle School.
The county front street is built along the city river, between the two arch bridges of the south new bridge and the north new bridge, this street is not lively, the school front street on its left and right sides, the horizontal street, there are no merchants, because of the ancient regulations, the county government is not allowed to set up a city around it.
The streets in front of the county are all large families, high-ranking officials and nobles, in today's terms, it is a high-level cadre area and a rich area.
There are the gate of the Yu family, the gate of the Feng family, the gate of the Xi family, the gate of the Sun family, the gate of the strong family, the gate of the gate, and the big family.
The most prominent in the county front street, is the most prominent in the family, the Fuyuan Hall of the family, it has a history, in the early years is Yu Qixuan's house, his descendant Yu Zhen, Yongzheng first year in the examination champion, it is said that when he was the official Hubei Inspector Xuezheng, he admitted two more places, violated the imperial court examination system, and was expelled from public office and demoted to the common people. After Yu Zhen returned, in the first year of Qianlong, he participated in the scientific examination of erudition and words, and Yu Zhen ranked first, and his fame was restored, so the inscription plaque was restored to the Yuan Hall.
Yu Zhen and Yu Minzhong are cousins, both brothers are champions, a Qiaoxi Fuyuan Hall, a Qiaodong Prime Minister's Mansion, Weiwei is prominent, in Jintan, known as Yu Bancheng.
In August 1948, the Communist Party organization of Nanjing Jinling University was destroyed and a group of people were arrested, and the Student Committee of the Nanjing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to disperse the party members of the school to hide, Xu Yangqiu was a professor at Jinling University at the time, and was the chairman of Jintan Private Tianfu Middle School, and he took the risk to hide Xu Yuanping, Yao Xulun, Li Chu and other four college students to Jintan, and publicly identified as a teacher of private Tianfu Middle School and undertook teaching tasks. Eat and live in his home at No. 1 Xujia Lane.
Hua Luogeng and his wife also came to Xu's house to visit Xu Yangqiu, Xu Yangqiu and Hua Luogeng are brothers-in-law, the first time they met, Hua Luogeng was still a little restrained, Xu Yangqiu's wife Wu Shufang and Hua Luogeng's wife Wu Xiaoyuan are cousins, Xu Yangqiu is 23 years older than Hua Luogeng, these two seniors, go to relatives, a cup of tea, talk elegantly.
Today, when you take a walk around the county front street, you can still smell a unique smell with your eyes closed.
It is said that there is a fish in the Ussuri River called salmon, and no matter where it swims, it will never forget the smell of the Ussuri water. I am also like a big salmon, in the years when I was studying in the county, I carried my schoolbag to and from the county front street, and on the county front street, those men in long shirts, the polite appearance, the elegant smell of the book, I will never forget.
In 2016, he returned to his hometown to find his roots and ask his ancestors, and invited some people in the city to participate, respectively, in Erzhao and Bailong Villa tea talks, Xu Wei and Cao Chunbao and others participated.
In addition to Xu Yangqiu, he is a master of arts from the University of Chicago, a professor at Jinling University and Nanjing Normal University. There is also the translator Wang Wei of the West Sedan Lane, he studied in France, is a student of Marie Curie, he translated the Indian Dante "Divine Comedy" is famous all over the world, Wang Wei has had close contacts with Hua Luogeng in the West Sedan Lane, at that time Hua Luogeng dropped out of school and was unemployed, poor and sick, often went to Wang's house to borrow books, Wang Wei in 1928 in Jintan County Junior High School as a one-year principal, see Hua has a talent for mathematics, encouragement, and so on, you can continue to study mathematics. After Hua Luogeng became famous, he said at the Nanjing Mathematics Workers' Symposium in 1961 that Mr. Wang Wei was the first appreciator of my mathematical achievements.
Wang Wei and Xu Yangqiu, these two people, are the shining stars in the county front street.
There are also Han Xinyuan, an entrepreneur living in Brazil, and Yu Yizhen, a Bolshevik soldier who participated in the August 1 Wuchang Uprising, Yu Yizhen is the son of Yu Zhupo, and he is a house that was moved to the gray wharf from the county front street.
There is a small Sansi Bridge on the front street of the county, and the Jintan County Chronicle records: "The Sansi Bridge is a hundred steps south of the county front street, and the center of the street is the side, and the stone letter is used to pass, so that the litigant goes to the county to think twice."
The yamen set a bridge to warn and think twice before acting, which may be the rule of the year. The old yamen of Danyang County, it also has a Sansi Bridge on Ximen Street.
I have been walking on the county front street since I was a child, and I have not seen a bridge, I heard people say that the Sansi Bridge is a dark bridge, and I heard the sound of flowing water under the bridge, and I did not see the shadow of the bridge on the road.
There are not only Sansi Bridge, but also Sansi Bridge Wharf, as well as Sansi Bridge Bath, also called Xinxin Bath, the bath is not big, there are not many bathers, I took a bath there when I was a child.
People will die, trees will grow old, and houses will disappear, and the row of houses along the riverbank of the county front street, the Great Leap Forward widened the city and river, and not a single one was left, all of them were broken to the bottom.
There was an old man Xu Yunzi in Jintan, he saw the word "fold" on the wall of the house, and he took a lot of photos with his old camera, which was the last moment in the county front street.
The houses on the other side of the county front street, unobstructed, stayed, this row of houses, one building after another, magnificent, was later used by the tin opera troupe, the federation of trade unions, tobacco and alcohol monopolies, supply and marketing cooperatives and other units.
Within a few years, these houses were also gone.
The only thing that can survive in the front street of the county is the Dai Wangfu of Huang Chengzhong, the leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Now the gate of Dai Wangfu faces east, there used to be a door, facing west, enter the door and see a shrine, with an incense case, let people burn incense and kowtow.
The most lively day in the county front street, I remember that in 1956, there was a Dahua theater on the street, the provincial tin theater troupe came to Jintan to report the performance, staged the East China opera will perform the award-winning tin opera, Jintan people like to watch tin opera, the small city is unprecedented, 10,000 people empty alleys, the door of the Dahua theater is also specially installed neon lights, the lights are gorgeous.
These three award-winning tin dramas, one is Yao Cheng's new path, one is Shen Peihua's meeting in the nunnery, and the other is Wang Lanying's double push.
Jiangsu Provincial Tin Opera Troupe also played a game with the Jintan Qiujiang basketball team on the basketball court of the county front street supply and marketing cooperative, I am the captain of the Qiujiang basketball team, the audience came a lot that day, the inside and the outside three floors, I don't know whether to come to see the ball, or to see the actors, the famous actress Wang Lanying and Shen Peihua They all came to the court, greeted the audience, and helped clean up the court, the audience cheered.
There is a private clinic in the county front street, sitting east and facing west, which was opened by Dr. Yang Baozhi, who came out of the church hospital, and after the liberation, he worked in the Huancheng Hospital, and later he served as the director of the Hetou People's Commune Health Center, and I worked as a doctor under him.
There is also an old Chinese medicine shop in the front street of the county, at the south end of the street, there is an age, the name of the shop is Yishoutang, the Chinese medicine Peng Luchu, Xuan Zhihe, my mother is not in good health, vertigo disease, are all taking Yishoutang's decoction, and later demolished the county front street, and they are gone.
The city is developing, yesterday's county front street, evolved into today's Yanhe West Road, the city market, is another scenery, here the county front street primary school, traditional Chinese medicine hospital, Dai Wangfu, Xinhua Building, ancient and modern buildings are intertwined with each other, the long history of modern civilization glued together, this old street, this corner, the nostalgia of the dependents, the lingering feelings.
In this interview, standing on this Nanxin Bridge, the world is wide, and I feel very humble when I look at my figure.
The interview with Nanxinqiao ended, the time was still early, along Hedong Road and Hexi Road, people and cars came and went, and above it, the blue sky and white clouds, and the sun hung high in the air.
About the Author
Hu Jinkun, pen name Hu Chenqianli, a member of the Changzhou Writers Association, a member of the Yanhuang Culture Research Association of Jintan District, and the author of the book "Caohe Chronicle". There are more than 300,000 words of prose, novels, and poems published in newspapers and periodicals such as "Yuhua", "Cuiyuan", "Taohu", "Wenyi Jinsha" and so on.